As partners in the $329 million Blue Economy CRC announced in Launceston

Macquarie University engineers will
develop new technologies for ocean
infrastructure as part of the Blue Economy Cooperative Research Centre
announced by Karen Andrews, the Minister for Industry, Science and Technology.

“Australia has the third largest maritime
zone in the world,” says Professor Darren Bagnall, Macquarie University’s Dean
of Engineering. “It is around 10 million square kilometres. That’s larger than
Australia’s land mass. Macquarie University engineers are already working to
improve the safety and reliability of oil and gas platforms and of Australian
Navy ships. We’re excited about the opportunity to build on this expertise to
create new kinds of infrastructure that will operate safely and efficiently far
out to sea,” he says.

“We can only move seafood and energy
production offshore if we can ensure safe operations under extreme ocean
environments,” says Dr Rouzbeh Abbassi, an engineer and leader of Macquarie’s
contribution to the CRC. “We are providing expertise in assessing and
evaluating safety, reliability and economic viability of different offshore
structures and in different ocean energy resource development,” he says.

The $329
million research project is a 10-year collaboration between six Australian
research agencies, 25 industry and government partners, and a dozen
international partners underpinned by a $70 million cash investment from the
Federal Government. It’s the largest CRC in the history of the scheme.

Blue
Economy CRC Research Director, Australian Maritime College Associate Professor
Irene Penesis says the program is unique in bringing together aquaculture,
renewable energy and offshore engineering for the first time.

“Industries
must be enabled to move from the coast zone into more exposed operating
environments before we can secure this major opportunity for the nation,” she says.

Associate
Professor Penesis says this means:

developing new technologies and
infrastructure to allow industries to expand off shore,

lowering the cost of operations through increasing renewable energy,

making advances in materials and the design of offshore structures to
increase longevity and reliability in extreme environments,

improving the environmental management of our oceans,

developing and advocating for regulatory frameworks that build confidence
for industry to invest and ensure the public has confidence that developments
operate at the highest environmental standards.

The focus
of the first five years of the program will be developing and testing new
offshore aquaculture and renewable energy technologies, which will then be
brought together on a single platform to demonstrate the economic and
environmental benefits of co-location.

“The
offshore research platform will act as a living laboratory where we can
vertically integrate renewable energy and aquaculture technologies with other
engineering activities, such as autonomous and remotely-operated vehicles, in a
proof of concept for how we could operate in the future,” Associate Professor
Penesis says.

“It will
be the first offshore research platform of its kind in the world and we’re
confident that it will deliver ground-breaking research alongside commercially
viable new materials, concepts, prototypes and monitoring systems – all
informed by best practice and delivered in an environmentally sustainable way.”

The CRC
is expected to generate more than $4 billion for the national economy.

Macquarie
University is contributing four chief investigators to the CRC: